Hope Springs Eternal

We had some amazingly warm weather this week for New England. And, torrential rain that would have been a blizzard, but it was not. Take that winter!! Good for the aquifers, but with ice still up here, lots and lot of pudding mud. 


Midweek, it was a perfect day to take an afternoon off. Seemed like many had the same idea after this bleak winter, as the roads were literally packed, for the two hour drive to a new beach, for us. It was a perfect day to pretend there was no stress and real-life stuff to deal with. The ocean is such a soothing, fiercely strong place to be-truly don't think I could ever live somewhere that I could not "touch" it.

I often do a solo one-on-one field trip with each dog, no specific schedule. Beach day was Teg. 

She got to run full-out as low tide and beach went on and on. I discovered her herding instincts, also translate to tracking skyward-in this case, Sea gulls. She was trying her best to run as fast as she could to affect their path, and get out in front of them. I don't think she realized they could not see or "feel" the tiny speck on the beach, nor did they care. 

When the gulls' path took them out to sea, Teg also quickly learned how to swim and what saltwater tasted like. It was interesting to see how unfazed she was, but also seemed perplexed that "this stuff" was slowing her down. 

Luckily, the attraction to controlling motion obsession seemed to switch gears, as she hit water, or the birds flew off into the distance-I was able to tap into her thinking mind again and she did not swim out to where it would have been dangerous-or I needed to jump in. Water, is still not that warm. LOve my puppy but recalls are a beautiful thing too.

We got to practice some very good, at a distance real-life recalls. I can see the beauty of a sheepdog whistle in these cases, as at points with the breeze and distance, she could not hear me...just saw the arm flapping person imitating a windmill, making funny noises to catch her attention. She raced back, as quickly as she left. But, definitely something to work on. The pup has got an engine!! And at 6 months is very coordinated & speedy.

We also got to hangout with one of our Ggrail babies-her mini-me, running and being beautiful. So, connected to her great people, a beautiful thing. She and Teg got to explore tidal pools, run the open beach for toys, find hundreds of living sand dollars (which is very cool to see so many) and climb on all kinds of textures, especially seaweed covered rocks, that are normally submerged.

A beautiful afternoon!